The Five Boroughs of the East Midlands distinct from the Kingdom of Mercia in the early 10th century[1]

Like that of Yorkshire, the East Midlands dialect owes much of its grammar and vocabulary to Nordic influences, the region having been incorporated in the Norse controlled Danelaw in the late 9th century. At this time, the county towns of the East Midlands counties became Viking fortified city states, known as the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw. For example, the East Midlands verb to scraight ('to cry') is thought to be derived from the Norse, skrike in modern Scandinavian, also meaning to cry.[2]

Though spoken less commonly today, the dialect of the East Midlands has been investigated in texts such as the Ey Up Mi Duck[4] series of books (and an LP) by Richard Scollins and John Titford. These books were originally intended as a study of Derbyshire Dialect, particularly the distinctive speech of Ilkeston and the Erewash valley, but later editions acknowledge similarities in vocabulary and grammar which unite the East Midlands dialects and broadened their appeal to the region as a whole.

"Ey up" (often spelt ayup / eyup) is a greeting thought to be of Old Norse origin (se upp) used widely throughout the North Midlands and South Yorkshire, and "Mi Duck" is thought to be derived from a respectful Anglo Saxon form of address, "Duka" (Literally "Duke"), and is unrelated to waterfowl.[5] Non-natives of the East Midlands are often surprised to hear men greet each other as 'Mi Duck.'[2]

In recent years, humorous texts such as Nottingham, As it is Spoke have used its phonetically spelt words to deliberately confuse non-natives to the region.[6] For example:

Alrate youth?

Are you alright young man?

Avya gorra wi'ya?

is the wife with you? (lit. "Have you got her with you?). The pronunciation 'wi-yer' is more common in the Nottingham and the South East Midlands. Pronunciations with th-fronting may be more common elsewhere, particularly if influenced by the common youth speech of southern England.

However, there are many words in use in the traditional East Midlands Dialect which do not appear in standard English. The short list below is by no means exhaustive. More comprehensive glossaries exist within texts such as Ey Up Mi Duck by Richard Scollins and John Titford.

badly

hungover/ill

belt-job

easy job (used in certain coal-mining communities based on watching a conveyor belt)

blubber/blubb

to cry/weep uncontrollably (i.e. "Stop your blubbing.")

bonny

In many dialects, this has the sense of ‘looking well’ often referring to a healthy plumpness.[7] In Leicester and Nottingham, a transferred sense of overweight is derived from this sense.

(There is a yet older sense now only commonly used in Scots, Northern & some Midland dialects meaning 'beautiful' generally rather than of individuals having a pleasing embonpoint specifically.)[8]

causie: pavement (presumably from 'causeway')

chuck

throw (Chuck us 'ball, (South-East Derbyshire)).

The word has the Standard English literal sense of to gently toss a light object and the Standard English extended sense of to easily or contemptuously throw a heavy object. The OED does not record a distinct regional use but does say that workmen (manual workers) use it in their trades to mean throw generally.[9]

clouts

trousers (usually pronounced claarts), or used in the verb form, "to clout", which means "to hit"

The greeting 'now then' (as 'Nah theen') is still in use in Lincolnshire and North-East Derbyshire, used where other people might say "Hello".[citation needed] 'Nen mate' can also be heard instead of "now then mate".

It is very common to hear people replacing the word "of" with "on". "There were two on em'" (There were two of them). "Get hold on em'" (Get hold of them).[citation needed]

People from Leicester are known in the popular holiday resort Skegness as "Chisits", due to their expression for "how much is it" when asking the price of goods in shops.[13]

Up until the mid 20th century it was not uncommon to hear the use of informal forms of address, Thee and Thou, as compared to the more formal Yo or You. Use of the informal form of address is now uncommon in modern speech.

Northamptonshire is in the East Midlands region defined in the late 20th century, and has historically harboured its own dialect comparable to other forms of East Midlands English,[11] particularly among the older generation. However, more recently its linguistic distinctiveness has significantly eroded due to influences from the western parts of East Anglia, the West Midlands, and the South as well as the 'Watford Gap isogloss', the demarcation line between southern and northern English accents.

The Danelaw split the present county into a Viking north and a Saxon south. This is quite plainly heard, with people in the south speaking more like people from Oxfordshire or Cambridgeshire and people in the north sounding more like people from Leicestershire.[citation needed]

Also of note is the anomalous dialect of Corbyite spoken around Corby in the north of Northamptonshire, which reflects the migration of large numbers of Scottish and Irish steelworkers to the town during the 20th Century. The dialect is often compared to Glaswegian.[citation needed]

The dialect of Coalville in Leicestershire is said to resemble that of Derbyshire because many of the Coalville miners came from there, and the dialect of Glossop in North West Derbyshire has similarities with Manchester dialect due to its close geographical position to Greater Manchester.[citation needed]. The dialect of the Derbyshire Dales is near identical to that of the bordering North Staffordshire.

Lincolnshire has long been an economically relatively homogeneous, less industrial more heavily agricultural county and is in part naturally separated by the River Trent divorcing its largest market town, the City of Lincoln from Nottinghamshire. East of the Lincolnshire Wolds, in the southern part of the county, the Lincolnshire dialect is closely linked to The Fens and East Anglia, and, in the northern areas of the county, the local speech has characteristics in common with the speech of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This is largely due to the fact that the majority of the land area of Lincolnshire was surrounded by sea, the Humber, marshland, and the Wolds; these geographical circumstances permitted little linguistic interference from the East Midlands dialects until the nineteenth century when canal and rail routes penetrated the eastern heartland of the county.

In North Nottinghamshire [and North-East Derbyshire], the dialect is very similar to South Yorkshire, including occasional use of the pronoun thou amongst older people. See Stephen Whyles's book A Scab is no Son of Mine for examples of speech of the Worksop area.[14]